The Michigan Department of Transportation is exploring whether to rebuild or find new use for the mile long I-375 freeway that runs along Detroit's east side. / Jarrad Henderson/ Detroit Free Press

Written by

Lewis (Bill) M. Dickens

Detroit Free Press guest writer

When designing infrastructure, good reason and sound experience must be employed. One essential reason that I-375 exists as a recessed roadway is acoustic.

It provides for tranquility in the residential areas just east of the downtown central business district, and beautifully separates the commercial areas and great collection of historic skyscrapers from the relatively new residential areas to the east of downtown.

It is a masterpiece of urban design and planning, providing rapid access to downtown. And it was designed to provide relief from urban traffic noise pollution for the residences. Detroitís most effective architect-planner, Charles Blessing, who created the Medical Center (now Midtown), knew exactly what he was creating, and the solution is brilliant. Few cities provide such rapid access with ease to its core. The current design is crucial for the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel.

The symmetric design of the highways into Detroit provides quick, direct access to Jefferson from both the east and the west. It contains the core, and will cause future higher-density development in the Central Business District. This is key to Detroitís urban form and, by extension, Detroitís unique visual brand. Having two means of ingress and egress is crcuial and recognized in the current design.

It beautifully incorporates clever design features known to attenuate the excessive sounds of highways.

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This is accomplished with the angled embankments covered with grass and the beautiful crab apple trees placed in clusters along the way. Grass has long been known to absorb sounds, and for that reason, we actually have one of the quietest residential spots in the city.

There is no question that the plantings could be more lush with a deft landscape design. The recessed cut completes the bracketing of our area with the Dequindre Cut, which possesses some wonderful ideas, and should be expanded upon with any changes to I-375.

Getting rid of I-375 would bring absolutely no improvement to the walkability we have now. It would be nice if the current bridges were enhanced, but if the freeway were raised, it would just make it possible for anyone to walk anywhere, which is not beneficial at all.

Mixing traffic with pedestrian walkways is far more dangerous. A light-cable stay footbridge running across from Nicolet to Clinton Street could be a nice connection to both the theater district, Grand Circus Park and to the stadiums.

With Ford Field and Comerica Park and a possible new Red Wings arena to the immediate north of downtown, the traffic loads and demands will have been greatly altered. Far too many vehicles are now being forced down I-375 to exit on Lafayette, Larned and Jefferson to reverse back north when the magnets for the traffic are actually now on the north end of the downtown area. The problem lies there.

I-75 has a highly constrictive kink as it turns from essentially an east-west orientation to a north-south direction. Now that the Brewster-Douglass housing project is being demolished, the opportunity arises to rework I-75 so that it is wider and can accommodate the traffic flow smoothly and also provide space to insert exit ramps into the north end of downtown, where all the crowd-drawing sports venues exist.

If I-375 were eliminated, the apartment buildings and complexes around Lafayette Park would suffer even more because they lie directly along the service road. Woodward Academy, at the corner of Lafayette and I-375, would also suffer greatly, placing students into high-traffic areas. Young students and surface traffic are a lethal mix.

The best thing for Lafayette Park and the adjacent communities and schools is that the city not disrupt or destroy the existing fine design of I-375, and instead quickly address the flow of traffic from I-75 into the north end of the Central Business District.